“Yes,” Miriam said.
“I think he did.”
“Then why didn’t he just tell me himself?
In the room, before—”
“Because Gerald was coming back.” She said it quietly, like a fact she had been carrying for hours.
“Gerald called the hospital that afternoon.
Frank heard the nurse confirm he was on his way.
That’s why Frank sent you out.
He needed you gone before Gerald arrived.
He needed you safe and moving toward the truth before Gerald could get to you first.”
The last words Frank had ever said to me.
*Go there.
Now.*
Not a dying man’s confusion.
A warning.
My phone lit up on the cushion beside me.
A text from Gerald: *Heard the news about Frank.
So sorry, sweetheart.
I didn’t reply to Gerald’s text that night.
I sat with it on the screen for a long time, reading it the way you re-read something when you know the words are the same but the meaning has changed entirely.
*Sweetheart.* He had always called me that.
My whole life.
Miriam made tea.
I didn’t drink mine.
She didn’t drink hers either.
At some point I fell asleep on her sofa with Frank’s letter still folded in my coat pocket, and when I woke the light through the curtains was gray and early and Miriam was already in the kitchen.
Paulson called at eight forty-seven.
“I spoke to a colleague at the medical examiner’s office,” he said.
“Given the circumstances — the nurse’s statement, the timeline, the fact that your father’s condition changed acutely after an unsupervised visit — they’re willing to take a closer look before the death certificate is finalized.
That buys us time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to do this correctly.
I also ran Gerald Marsh through the system last night.” A pause.
“He has a civil judgment against him from 2019.
Fraud case, settled out of court.
And there’s a restraining order filed in 2014 — a woman named Diane Kowalski.
It was dropped after six months.”
I wrote the names down on the back of an envelope.
“He’s not who he presents himself as,” Paulson said.
“I want you to meet with me today.
Bring everything Frank gave you — the letter, the birth certificate, the nurse’s statement.
All of it.”
“He’s going to expect to hear from me,” I said.
“Gerald.
He texted last night.
If I go silent, he’ll know something is wrong.”
Paulson thought for a moment.
“Can you send him one short reply?
Something that keeps him calm and doesn’t reveal where you are?”
I typed: *Thank you, Gerald.
I’m with family.
I’ll be in touch soon.*
I showed Miriam before I sent it.
She read it and nodded.
“Family,” she said.
“That’s true now.”
I sent it.
Gerald replied within two minutes: *Of course.
Take all the time you need.
Frank would be so proud of you.*
My jaw tightened.
I put the phone face-down.
Paulson met us at a coffee shop three miles from Miriam’s house.
He was in his fifties, compact, with the kind of stillness that comes from years of listening more than talking.
He spread the documents on the table between us and read everything twice without speaking.
Then he looked up.
“The nurse — is she willing to give a formal statement?”
“Frank’s letter says she agreed to.
Her contact information is on the last page.”
He turned to it.
“I’ll reach out to her today.” He tapped the birth certificate.
“This, combined with the letter and the statement, gives us enough to open a formal inquiry into Catherine Reyes’s death.
That’s not a guarantee of anything.
But it’s a start.”
“What about Frank?” I asked.
“What happened to him in that room?”
“The medical examiner’s office will look at his chart and the nursing records for that shift.
If Gerald administered anything, or tampered with anything, there may be a trace.” He paused.
“Or there may not be.
I want to be honest with you about that.”
“I understand.”
“In the meantime, I need you to do something that’s going to be difficult.” He looked at me steadily.
